NCRA News NCRA is a non-profit trade organization of recycling businesses, community groups, municipalities and individuals. We promote waste reduction, reuse, salvaging, recycling and composting as vital tools for resource and energy conservation and cost-effective, environmentally sound methods of disposing of discards. Founded in 1978, the majority of our 265 members are located in Northern California; we also have members sprinkled across the US. Our office is in Oakland CA. Not a member - yet? Please join and encourage your associates to join membership is $60 per year. Benefits include this publication, access to the NCRA Jobs Board, discounts on tours, classes, workshops and conferences, inclusion in the Member Directory and listing in the Members Services Directory. For more information, visit www.ncrarecycles.org, look for us on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube or send a note to the NCRA office via our on -line contact form.
CONTRIBUTORS
Laura McKaughan, Juliana Gerber, Chrise de Tournay, Liz Bortolotto, Tom Wright, John Moore, Editor Portia Sinnott and the members of NCRA's Committees.
January 2018
Announcements Groups Markets Legislation Press
ELECTION RESULTS
2018 BOARD OF DIRECTORS Alexandra Hoffman-Bradley, 2020 Susan Blachman, 2020 Doug Brooms, 2019 Tim Dewey-Mattia, 2020 Rebecca Jewell, 2019 David Krueger, 2020 Laura McKaughan, 2019 John Moore, 2020 Hilary Near, 2019 Jessica Robinson, 2019 Steven Sherman, 2019 For bios visit the Board and Staff page. Ten NCRA members were nominated to join the 2018 Board. In December, 100 NCRA members voted to fill the five open positions.
Tim Dewey-Mattia, Alexandra HoffmanBradley, David Krueger and John Moore were reelected and Susan Blachman joins the board for the first time. (That’s Susan in the blue in the front row of the 2017 Annual Meeting photo below.) Thank you Nik Balachandran, Alina Bekkerman, Janette Drew, Shova Ale Magar and Laura Zamora for putting forth your candidacy. We look forward to your continued involvement. Appreciations to the Election Committee, Lori Marra and Portia Sinnott. and Juliana Gerber, the NCRA Administrative Coordinator, for managing the nominations.
STOPWASTE RESPONSE TO NCRA E-NEWS "MEMBER SHOWCASE" AD ARTICLE By Wendy Sommer, Executive Director, Alameda County Waste Management Authority, 1/11/18 I was surprised to see the “Member Showcase” article in your December eNews about a lawsuit that names our organization. It certainly makes sense for NCRA members to discuss and debate critical issues, but a suggested call to consider joining the lawsuit from the editor seems out of place when NCRA’s Board has not taken a position on it. Dialogue is important, but it does requires more than one voice, so we now feel the need to weigh in on the article and clarify/ correct some of the statements made.
The lawsuit pertains to the Organics Recovery Project, which is a part of the Davis Street Transfer Station Master Plan. Much of the project is necessary for Waste Management to comply with requirements set forth in their franchise with the City of Oakland, ensuring that Oakland material placed in landfill does not contain organics. The project is not designed, nor is it adequately scaled, to replace Oakland’s universal and mandatory source separation services. Unlike the existing structure at the transfer station that is only partially enclosed, the new stateof-the-art facility will be fully enclosed with rapid roll-down doors, negative air pressure and biofilters. (Continued on page 6)
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OFFICIAL RETRACTION In the December 2017 NCRA Newsletter (Dec 7), there appeared a Members Showcase article entitled, "The AD Lawsuit you may not know about" by Arthur Boone, that discussed a lawsuit challenging the appropriateness of the CEQA approval of Waste Management of Alameda County's anaerobic digestion facility to be sited in San Leandro and involving StopWaste and the City of San Leandro. The Editor's Note suggests that "This is an issue that NCRA members should be discussing, debating and perhaps joining in the lawsuit." The phrasing of the Editor's Note seems to suggest NCRA is encouraging others get involved in or support the lawsuit. This simply is not the case. The lawsuit and the arguments therein have been brought before the board several times during Board Meetings and Zero Waste Advocacy Committee meetings. Due to lack of consensus, the Board very specifically has NOT taken any position on this lawsuit. For our newsletter to suggest otherwise is misleading, harmful and simply not correct. We deeply apologize for any confusion the Editor's Note may have caused and are seeking to set the record straight through this formal correction that NCRA has not taken a position on the lawsuit and is not Proposed Site Plan, Davis Street Transfer Station encouraging others to Master Plan Improvements, Initial Study Checklist and Negative Declaration, City of San Leandro Community join the lawsuit or get Development Department CH2MHill, November 2010 involved in any way at this time.
2018 RECYCLING UPDATE - PRELIMINARY SCHEDULE AND SPEAKERS SAVE THESE DATES!
Details in the coming weeks 6th Annual Zero Waste Youth Convergence, Saturday and Sunday, 3/17 & 18, City College San Francisco Introduction To Zero Waste Classes, Monday, 3/19, Santa Rosa and San Jose 23rd Annual Recycling Update, Tuesday, 3/20, 8:30am - 4:30pm, Berkeley NCRA’s 40th Anniversary Celebration Planned for Saturday, 3/24 but not firm until venue lock-in.
THANK YOU, RECYCLING UPDATE 2017 SPONSORS!! Below are a dozen Recycling Update Speakers to whet your appetite! The growing list can be found on the 2018 RU Speakers page! Check back as details are added. Adam Gendell, Associate Director, Sustainable Packaging Coalition David Allaway, Senior Policy Analyst, Oregon Department of Environmental Quality Erin Cooke, Sustainability Director, San Francisco International Airport Jennifer Acton, Environmental Operations Manager, San Francisco International Airport Kerry Parker, Recycling Specialist, City of Alameda Monica Wilson, US and Canada Program Director, Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA) Nicole Bassett, Reuse Workshop Nicole Tai, Green Lynx Patrick Mathews, Salinas Valley Recycles Terry McDonald, DR3 Mattress Recycling and Saint Vincent de Paul Lane County Will Bakx, Soil Scientist/Owner, Sonoma Compost Company Zoe Heller, Assistant Director of Policy Dev., CalRecycle
ANNOUNCEMENTS BOARD MEETINGS, JANUARY 18 AND FEBRUARY 15 Meet us in Oakland at the law offices of Henn, Etzel and Moore for a light dinner at 6pm followed by the meeting at 6:30pm. The address is1970 Broadway, Suite 950 - near the 19th/Broadway BART station. Coming late? Let the office know so someone can be prepared to come down to let you in; the doorperson leaves at 6pm. Directions RSVP Board Meetings: Third Thursday of most months; often but not always held at John Moore’s office in Oakland. The board does not meet in September or March. Zero Waste Advocacy: Second Wednesday of most months. The next meeting is February 14 at John Moore’s office in Oakland. RSVP. Membership, Outreach and Activities: First Wednesday of most months at noon via phone. RSVP.
MILESTONES
Christienne de Tournay, ZWCA, has joined Gigantic Idea Studio as project manager of the CARE/Carpet Recovery Effort for California. NCRA News, January 2018, Page 2
ASSOCIATED GROUPS
nationally at $180.00 per ton in July 2017. Comparatively, the OCC national average was $114.06 per ton on Jan. 6, 2017.
NRC’S RESPONSE TO WTO ON CHINA TRADE RESTRICTIONS
Post-consumer mixed paper (PS 54) is still trading at a low national average of $31.88 per ton. This grade was trading significantly higher one year ago, at an average of $84.06 per ton on Jan. 6, 2017.
Bob Gedert, President, National Recycling Coalition, 11/30/17 The NRC has issued two responses to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in protest of the restrictions placed by China on imports of recycles shipped from US ports. The NRC objections are based on the following: China’s declaration to prohibit the importation of solid waste is based on improper terminology and a presentation that secondary materials prepared as raw material for recycling is categorized as waste distorts the environmental claims issued by China. We request WTO to utilize internationally accepted definitions for trade negotiations, including the NRC definition of recycling. Quality standards should be set on already established internally acceptable industry standards, such as the standardization guide for bale quality in the ISRI standard commodities and scrap market specifications. These standards are embraced and utilized by recycling markets within North America and through ISRI member companies in at least 34 countries globally. The NRC requests the WTO for consideration of utilizing the standards of bale quality utilizing these global ISRI adopted standards as a basis for resolving quality issues with China’s GB 16487 claim on allowable prohibitives. The NRC also requests the WTO to impose an extension of time for any import restrictions, as the sharp deadline of March 1, 2018 cannot be reflected with significant operational changes in the US recycling industry. The NRC requests that WTO engage between the parties involved as a arbitrator. … The NRC calls upon its members to address the China trade barriers by focusing on 1) Quality, 2) Rebuilding America’s Recycling Industry and 3) Increasing the Recycling Economic Impact in our communities. Read more… NRC
MARKETS AND MATERIALS POST-CONSUMER FIBER AND PLASTIC PRICES REMAIN STEADY
RecyclingMarkets.net Staff via Resource Recycling, 1/9/18 As we enter 2018, the market for most grades of curbside recyclables remains unchanged, although aluminum prices have seen a recent uptick. Sorted residential papers (PS 56) have seen steady pricing since early December, still trading at a national average of $55.63 per ton. However, this represents a dramatic 40 percent drop from January 2017, when the category was trading at an average of $92.25 per ton. The current national average of old corrugated containers (PS 11) also remains unchanged over the past month, trading at $105.63 per ton. This also represents a dramatic drop, 41 percent, over the past six months: OCC was trading
The current national average for baled aluminum cans rose 3.3 percent over the past month, from 67.69 cents per pound early December to the current 69.94 cents per pound. In many regions, trading is reaching the 72-cents-per-pound level. One year ago, this grade was trading 14 percent lower, at 61.13 cents per pound. Read more… Resource Recycling and RecyclingMarkets.net
SULAPAC WINS EUROPE’S FIRST FOUNDER’S PRIZE FOR THE CIRCULAR ECONOMY Green Alley, 10/11/17 Finnish start-up Sulapac is the winner of the 2017 Green Alley Award, Europe’s first founder’s prize for start-ups in the circular economy. With their packaging solution made of wood and natural adhesives, the two Finnish natives Suvi Haimi and Laura Kyllönen offer a stylish, but eco-friendly alternative to plastic packaging.
“The decision was not an easy one, but we agreed on Sulapac in the end because of its huge impact on one of the biggest problems of our times – plastic waste. Sulapac has developed a high-quality material that meets the diverse challenges of today’s market. Just one year old, the start-up demonstrates how an idea can be successfully implemented and accelerated in a very short time. In Finland, for example, the cosmetics line Niki Newd is already using jars by Sulapac for its products. We see great potential in this packaging solution and look forward to seeing Sulapac on the shelves of local drugstores.” explains Jan Patrick Schulz, CEO of Landbell Group. Other finalists included Mimergy and its technology to reduce waste of tires worldwide, Solmove and its solar streets, Newcy and its reusable cup system, Sulfotools and its green alternative for peptide production and Sustonable and their composite stone for kitchens and bathrooms. Before the final pitch, all finalists attended workshops with experts from the waste industry and start-up world, where they discussed the potentials, risks, strengths, and weaknesses of the start-ups. The prize for the winner Sulapac consists of cash and noncash items valued at 30,000 euros. Read more… Green Alley
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LEGISLATION
HOT OFF THE PRESS EPA - UP TO $3 MILLION AVAILABLE LOCAL ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION EFFORTS
AB 319 LEASH THE LID BILL PASSES ASSEMBLY RESOURCES!
The "Connect the Cap" (formerly "Leash the Lid") bill, AB 319 (Stone), passed the Assembly Natural Resources Committee January 8, 7 Ayes - 3 Noes, and now it's going to the Assembly Floor! Please let your Assembly representative know you support of this groundbreaking effort to reduce plastic pollution and save the lives of hundreds of thousands of birds and animals. (To access the AB 319 Toolkit visit the Albatross Coalition or click the logo above.) The bill text states: On and after January 1, 2020, a retailer shall not sell or offer for sale, in the state, a single-use beverage container with a cap, unless the container meets one of the following conditions: (a) The cap is tethered to the container in a manner that prevents the separation of the cap from the container when the cap is removed from the container. (b) The cap includes an opening from which the beverage can be consumed while the cap is screwed onto or otherwise contiguously affixed to the container.
MAKE A DIFFERENCE BY DOING SOMETHING EASY By John Douglas Moore, Co-Chair, NCRA Zero Waste Advocacy Committee AB 319 has passed out of the Assembly Natural Resources Committee to the full floor where it must pass by January 31. This bill failed to make its way through last year. CAW believes that the bill is likely to fail in the Assembly again this year unless some votes switch sides.
Experience suggests that a phone call to a legislator, which is logged by the office as “for” or “against” is more effective than emails and letters, especially form letters or online petitions. Please call and register your support for AB 319. Below is a list of the greater Bay Area assembly members and the phone numbers for their district offices. Feel free to contact legislators from outside the Bay Area. An online roster can also be found at assembly.gov:
GREATER BAY AREA ASSEMBLY MEMBERS Catherine Baker, 925 328-1515 Marc Berman, 650 691-2121 Rob Bonta, 510 286-1670 David Chiu, 415 557-3013 Kansen Chu, 408 262-2501 Susan Talamantes Eggmann, 209 948-7479 Timothy Grayso, 925 521-1511 Ash Kalra, 408 277-1220 Marc Levine, 707 576-2631 Evan Low, 408 446-2810 Kevin Mullin, 650 349-2200 Bill Quirk, 510 583-8818 Tony Thurmond, 510 286-1400 Philip Ting, 415 557-2312
THE USEPA will award three to four grants in each of EPA’s ten Regions, for no less than $50,000 and no more than $100,000 each, for a total of 30-35 grants nationwide. Proposals are due March 15, 2018. The Requests for Proposals will be posted on www.grants.gov later this week. In addition to other environmental topics, the 2018 EE Local Grant Program includes support for projects that reflect the intersection of environmental issues and agricultural bestpractices, conservation of natural resources, food waste management, and natural disaster preparedness. . Read more... EPA
CALRECYLE COMPLETES WILDFIRE DEBRIS REMOVAL IN NORTHERN CALIFORNIA BUTTE, NEVADA AND YUBA COUNTIES CalRecycle, 1/3/18 Crews managed by the California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery have completed the removal of wildfire debris on properties in Butte, Nevada, and Yuba counties following October’s devastating wildfires in Northern California. Since November 16, crews removed more than 63,000 tons of ash, debris, and contaminated soil from 250 properties in which owners chose to participate in the CalRecycle-managed cleanup.
Tonnage Removed Metals 2,939 Debris, Ash, & Soil 46,538 Concrete 13,124 Vegetation 713 Total Tons 63,314 Waste Type
% Per HH 5% 74% 21% 1%
12 186 52 3 253
… CalRecycle is working in coordination with the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services and other state and local partners as part of the Consolidated Debris Removal Program. Read more… CalRecycle
CONCRETE TORCHED IN SONOMA COUNTY FIRES BEING RECYCLED FOR ROADBEDS
Kevin McKallum, Press Democrat, 12/10/17 … While tens of thousands of tons of ash and debris from destroyed homes is being deposited into the Sonoma County landfill, raising concerns about its future capacity, by contrast the concrete heading into the Stony Point Rock Quarry will be recycled, said Mark Soiland, president of the Soiland Company, which owns the quarry. Until recently, the quarry was receiving about 300 truckloads per day of concrete from contractors clearing home sites under the management of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Soiland said. By late last week, 234,000 tons of debris had been removed from 923 properties in Coffey Park, Fountaingrove and Larkfield-Wikiup by contractors working for the Corps. The Corps estimates about a million tons ultimately will be cleared from burned out properties, much of
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it heading to landfills, while the balance — mostly concrete, metal and wood — can be salvaged and recycled. … The material is considered clean and there are no restrictions on its reuse, according to the Corps. Tests for asbestos have all come back negative, said Patrick Bloodgood, a Corps spokesman. Read more… Press Democrat
NESTLÉ OPPONENTS CELEBRATE LONGAWAITED VICTORY
Maura Fahey, Crag Law Center, 10/30/17 Last Friday, Oregon Governor Kate Brown put Oregonians’ concerns about a Nestlé water grab in Cascade Locks to rest. Citing significant additional costs to the state, Brown sent a letter to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife asking agency Director Curt Melcher to withdraw the water exchange application that would put Oxbow Springs water into the hands of the City of Cascade Locks and clear the way for Nestlé to privatize public water. The Governor’s action deals a blow to Nestlé’s plans and upholds the public interest as demonstrated by nearly a decade of grassroots opposition and a 2016 Hood River county ballot initiative. … Since 2008, the Keep Nestlé Out of the Gorge coalition and partners have opposed a Nestlé plan to pump over 100 million gallons of water each year from Oxbow Springs in the Columbia Gorge into single-use plastic bottles. Read more… Crag
WILL PEOPLE EAT RELISH MADE FROM ‘WASTE’ INGREDIENTS?
Drexel Study Finds They May Even Prefer It! DrexelNow,12/12/17 ... Will consumers accept products made from ingredients that were destined for the garbage? Would a person actually eat— and pay for—a granola bar made from spent brewing grains or a relish made from vegetables unfit for the supermarket? While the macro-economic benefits of value-added surplus products seem clear, the trash-adjacent quality could make people reluctant to consume such products. Drexel researchers decided to decipher the consumers’ decisionmaking process to help come up with appropriate communication for these products. … By exploring consumer acceptance of and potentially a preference for value-added surplus products, this research marks some of the first attempts to empirically examine a consumer’s evaluation process for this novel food category. Most importantly, researchers have begun to evaluate how to efficiently present value-added surplus products as a novel category of food to consumers, so that it may contribute some relief to the global food crisis. Read more… DrexelNow
ARTISANAL FOOD WASTE: CAN YOU TURN SCRAPS INTO PREMIUM PRODUCTS?
Jessica Leigh Hester, NPR, 8/19/16 Rescued Relish is an anything-goes condiment made from excess produce that Philabundance, a Philadelphia antihunger organization, can't move. The relish is modeled on a Pennsylvania Dutch chowchow recipe — a tangy mix of sweet, spicy and sour flavors. And it's a way to capitalize on, rather than complain about, the variation in food donated to the food bank. Relish, Deutsch explains, has a flexible identity. "It's still relish if it has more cabbage this week than it did last week," he says. A pinch of this, a tablespoon of that — Deutsch appreciates that the condiment is "a vegetable version of nose-to-tail eating," with a similar goal of putting scraps to work. Once Philabundance transitions to a new facility, Deutsch says, the nonprofit could expand its workforce training program and adopt Rescued Relish as its own, keeping production in-house. The relish will be sold at Fare & Square, a nonprofit grocery store in impoverished Chester, Pa. Deutsch hopes to expand from there. Though they haven't settled on a retail value, Deutsch says that, when the product is sold in retailers other than Fare & Square, it will be priced as a premium good. He believes that a higher sticker price can help chip away at the stigma hanging onto surplus food. Deutsch says that when the team looks toward placing the product in other stores, they'll try to carve out a consumer base that is already versed in the lingo of sustainability and ethical food systems. "We're looking for foodies and [people] who really vote with their dollar in terms of the causes they believe in," Deutsch says. Read more… NPR
OIL GIANTS INVEST $180B IN PLASTICS, PROPELLING OCEANS TOWARD 'NEARPERMANENT' POLLUTION
Julia Conley, Common Dreams, 12/16/17 Scientists and environmental protection advocates are warning that a coming plastics boom could lead to a permanent state of pollution on the planet—and denouncing the fossil fuel industry for driving an increase in plastics production amid all that's known about the material polluting the world's oceans. "We could be locking in decades of expanded plastics production at precisely the time the world is realizing we should use far less of it," Carroll Muffett, president of the Center for International Environmental Law (CEIL), told the Guardian. The CEIL has compiled several reports about the plastics industry since September. The American Chemistry Council, a trade organization, has acknowledged that fossil fuel companies including Exxon and Shell Chemical have poured more than $180 billion into the creation of plastics facilities that are expected to create a 40 % rise in production of the material over the next decade. The rise in shale gas exploration in recent years has caused the price of natural gas liquids, used to make plastic, to drop significantly, causing companies to begin more than 300 plastics production projects since 2010. Read more... Common Dreams and The Guardian
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The City of San Leandro as the lead agency under CEQA adopted an Initial Study/Negative Declaration and approved the project in 2011, without receiving any objections. The Alameda County Waste Management Authority’s (ACWMA) discrete role as a responsible agency under CEQA was to amend the Countywide Integrated Waste Management Plan to include the project location and description. ACWMA required Waste Management to comply with all conditions imposed by the City of San Leandro and other regulatory agencies, including the Local Enforcement Agency and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District. ACWMA reviewed the facts and followed the process as required by law. We do not have control over the project’s design, nor influence over city franchise agreement requirements. The lawsuit alleges that the ACWMA did not comply with CEQA because it did not perform or require additional environmental review. Petitioners Boone and Stein refused to understand that CEQA requires additional environmental review ONLY IF 1. A project will have new and significant adverse environmental impact, AND 2. Those impacts result from new information, changed circumstances, or substantial changes to the project that occurred after completion of the prior environmental review. ACWMA staff independently evaluated Waste Management’s proposal, requested additional documentation and clarification, and concluded that there is no evidence showing that there will be new significant impacts requiring additional environmental review. There are no substantial changes to the project, no new information, and no changed circumstances since San Leandro’s 2011 approval. The next steps on this issue will be played out in court. For those who are interested, all the documents filed with the court, including ACWMA’s detailed response to the plaintiffs’ brief are available at the Alameda County Superior Court website: https://publicrecords.alameda.courts.ca.gov/PRS/ Case/SearchByCaseNumber. The Case Number is RG17858423. We feel that the lawsuit is unnecessary, and a waste of time and resources to defend, so we hope it is resolved soon. ###
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